Silverton was a fine estate, and though the country in which it was situated was tame and unlovely in comparison with that to which she had been for so long accustomed, yet Mary Seaham was not so inveterate a mountaineer that she could look, as I know many do, upon the different aspect of the mother country, with the eye of utter aversion and distaste, and though she could not perhaps have gone so far as to agree with old Evelyn when he, asserts Salisbury plain to be in his opinion, the part of Great Britain most worthy of admiration, yet for the gaze to be able to stretch unbounded over a level tract of cultivated land after having been long imprisoned within the massive confines of a mountainous district, she was not ashamed to own, there may be a certain degree of pleasurable relief.

But as may be supposed, any very critical survey of surrounding objects was at an end, when with that degree of nervousness ever more or less attending an arrival of this kind, she drew near the place of her destination in the carriage which had been sent to meet her. There was no one to receive her at the door when she alighted, but the servants, and its being near the dinner-hour, Mary concluded her cousins to have retired to their dressing-rooms. On making inquiries, however, to that effect she was informed that Mrs. de Burgh had not yet returned from her drive, and Mr. de Burgh was also from home.

Mary therefore accepted the offer of the civil domestic to be shown to the room prepared for her, and retired thither, not sorry to be able to rest awhile, after the fatigues of her long journey before a meeting with her relatives. Perhaps her spirits might be a little damped by the reception, or rather non-reception she had met with.

There is so much importance attached to a warm welcome, by those not well initiated in the careless frigidities of general society, that the very sensitive and inexperienced are often more chilled by any such accidental or habitual infringements on this score, than the occasion really requires.

We grow wiser or harder as we pass farther through the world, and learn to look upon it no longer as one large home of loving hearts, such as some may have accounted it; but a stage on which every man is too intent to play his own individual part, to have much respect for these minor charities of social life—the word, the look of kindness, of affection which to the sensitive and unworldly spirit are often of higher price—contribute more to make up the sum of mortal happiness, than the most generous deed, or striking act of beneficence. We grow as we have before said, wiser or more callous, as we pass on through this world of our's—learn to see upon what principle society is founded, and cease to shrink chilled, and wounded, before each touch which falls coldly upon the warm surface of our too exigente heart—each unsympathetic glance which meets our wistful gaze.

Mary Seaham sat down by her window, which commanded a view of the carriage road, through the park, to watch for the return of her cousin's wife.

The evening was lovely, and she could not feel astonished that Mrs. de Burgh should have prolonged her drive. A cool freshness had succeeded the sultriness of the day, and she had perhaps not gone out till late.

The scene too on which Mary looked was pleasant and refreshing to the eye. The wide park with its troop of spotted deer, herding for the night beneath the luxuriant foliage of the trees, which in rich clumps or single majesty were scattered thickly over the demesne, gilded by the still bright but softened sunbeams.

But Mary Seaham was not quite able to enter into the enjoyment, which at any other time would have been amply afforded her.

She raised her eyes and began to feel a regretful longing for the sun-gilt or cloud capped mountains, which for so long had met her gaze, towering above the highest tree-tops of the Glan Pennant gardens—and then a sense of strangeness and desolation came creeping over her feelings.

For the first time she seemed to realize the true nature of her present position—and the sight of some labourers, wending their way across the by-paths from their daily toil, tended to bring her gathering sadness to a crisis.

"They are going home," she murmured, and a few tears stole gently down her cheeks. Then she thought of her sisters—the youngest, in particular, as most lately and intimately associated with her in sympathy and companionship, now so far divided, not only by distance, but by the different ties and interests of her new estate; and then occurred to her the words she had so lately heard.

"Do you think you will find your cousin's house agreeable to you?" and she began to ask herself that question too, though not for the same reason, which had suggested the question to Mr. Temple—not lest it might prove too gay and worldly for her tastes and inclination, but by reason of the loneliness she might therein experience—that worst of loneliness—the loneliness of the heart, or,—

Why then had she come here, would not her sister Alice, have gladly opened her doors to receive her? And all the comparative inconvenience and discomfort of that arrangement, seemed to melt into insignificance before the other attractions of the picture suddenly conjured up. A sister's warm, and earnest welcome—the familiar family voice which would have greeted her, the tone of which at once would have made her feel at home, though in a strange land, amongst unfamiliar scenes and personages, whilst even the noisy delight of half-a-dozen nephews, and nieces, which would have celebrated her arrival, came before her fancy—as she sat in her silent solitary grandeur—in most alluring contrast with her present undemonstrative, though luxurious reception.

But no! she had been attracted by the urgent and pressing desire expressed in the letters of her cousins, to make their house her home until the return of her brother to England, and there had been something in the impression she had received, or the associations connected with her memories of those relatives, that had moved her, perhaps with little reflection, to embrace the offer.

But now she is thinking on the fÊte of six years ago—of the urgent alacrity with which her cousin and his beautiful intended had then volunteered their protection and support, and their subsequent neglect and abandonment. Might not this incident be a type of what she had to expect, under her present circumstances?

She did not even, in this mood of dark imagining to which she had yielded herself, carry her thoughts beyond the point of her discomfiture on that occasion, or she might perhaps have had some dream analogous to the sequel, conjured up to brighten the gloom of her present anticipations.

But dreams of any nature came not just then to her relief. She had never felt so wide awake to dull reality, unrelieved but by the meek philosophy with which she determined to make the best of everything relating to her present position, cheerfully and contentedly to submit herself to existing circumstances, keeping ever in view for her comfort the expected return of her much-loved brother from Canada, when whatever turn their fortunes might have taken, "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer," so that brother wrote, the cherished picture of their early youth, might still be realized, and a home provided for his favourite sister, which at least would make her independent of the cold and heartless people of the world, till she found or desired a dearer or a better.

Mary Seaham had just arrived at this point of her meditations, when her maid returned to say that Mr. de Burgh was in the house dressing for dinner, and to inquire whether her young lady would not do the same. Mrs. de Burgh had not come home, but it was already past the usual dinner hour.

Miss Seaham proceeded accordingly to make the simple toilette she thought suited to the occasion, for she learnt from her maid that there was no company staying in the house, and then she determined to go down stairs, to have at least her interview over with her cousin Louis, whilst awaiting the arrival of her tardy hostess.